To Win Polarized Elections, Republicans Need More Than Weak Opponents — They Need Strong Leaders

Tuesday’s anticipated red wave broke — in the kiddie pool. Yes, Republicans appear poised to regain control of the House and may also wrestle the Senate from Chuck Schumer’s hands. And those victories should be appreciated. But conservatives cannot help but be disappointed that the expected red tsunami never hit.

Nor can Republicans chalk the lower-than-predicted pickups up to cognitive biases causing conservatives to overestimate their midterm fortunes. Democrats also forecasted a routing last night and must be ecstatic that not only did a massive red wave not hit, but the ripple, at first glance, barely upset the baby.

The Line of Thought

The rationale was simple. Joe Biden is an incredibly unpopular president, with only 39 percent of the public approving of his performance, according to a Monday poll from Reuters. And 72 percent of voters believe our country is on the wrong track. The economy, which voters cited as their No. 1 concern, is in shambles. Gas prices are still high, and with limited supply remaining in the strategic oil reserves, OPEC’s resurgence in light of Biden’s weakness, and the far-left’s unrealistic green demands, they will continue to increase over the coming months. 

Skyrocketing interest rates and high inflation — which will only intensify as gas-price increases flow downstream — made kitchen-table issues a key concern heading into Tuesday’s vote. Parents’ anger over schools’ closures and continued efforts to indoctrinate students on trans ideology or critical race theory provided another sign that Democrats, responsible in the main for both, would face a reckoning. 

In short, the landscape mirrored the scene in Virginia in November 2021 when Republicans shocked the country by sweeping the statewide elections and regaining control of the House of Delegates in upset victories up and down the ballot. Glenn Youngkin, Winsome Sears, and Jason Miyares all defeated their Democrat opponents in the races for governor, lieutenant governor, and attorney general, respectively, notwithstanding polls and pundits giving the Republicans little chance of winning.

After Virginia’s sweep, the political post-mortem on Democrats identified Biden’s unpopularity, the wrong-track numbers, the struggling economy, and parents’ fights with school boards over gender and CRT ideology as responsible for the Republican landslide. Since that time, Biden’s popularity decreased further, with more voters viewing the country as being on the wrong track. Economic conditions are worse, and parents are outraged over the harm inflicted on their children under the Covid excuse. Spiraling crime rates added a new concern for voters since the 2021 Virginia test run. And even without this bleak backdrop, the president’s party almost always loses midterms. 

The confluence of these factors gave Republicans and Democrats alike reason to believe Republicans would wash Democrats out of several governors’ houses, in addition to flipping dozens of House seats, and giving Republicans a two- or even three-seat majority in the Senate. While the Republicans will likely win back the House and still have a chance to regain control of the Senate, the spread of the former is nowhere near what political types

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